Daily life in a South Dakota town during the Great Depression, shot by Ivan Besse.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: Besse (Ivan)
Sponsor: N/A
Audio/Visual: Si, B&W
Keywords: Amateur films; Home movies; South Dakota: Everyday life

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: aswegohomestead - - May 30, 2010
Subject: Another Great Film
I have one other of the Bessee films, of Britton downtown in the winter with loads of snow and cold. This was a beautiful view in a warmer season. It was fun to see some townsfolk I remembered from the winter vid all bundled up to folks having summer fall fun! Well worth the download.

Reviewer: Spuzz - - December 28, 2005
Subject: The forgotten Besse!
I didnt realize I missed this Besse til I was going through the reviews.. ok, here we go again! We start out people watching! Ha! Very clever with the 2 woman, both go in opposite directions, making Besse confused! Whoa, check out the ultracool tricycle on the sidewalk Lot of camera shy people this time out! Yeah, same ignore the camera gesture to you lady! Love the the finger flick that guy gives! All together now, PUSH! Cute kids and seniors! We leave this segment with some guy picking away on the sidewalk.. hmm.. ok Next we have yet ANOTHER parade.. Did these people have a parade every DAY? This is like the 7th parade Ive seen on here.. Nice balladeers..Not too sure what the theme of this parade was.. Lots of little kids in it though Hard to read most of the signage here Nice horse drawn wagon Whoa, the strand car is rather strange.. GOAT HOLDING UP THE PARADE!! (I hate when that happens), OK, seriously, the cars are going WAY to fast here.. Finally the parade ends.. Whoa.. Balladeers perform for us!! Thank you girls!! Hmm.. rather large crowd for THAT, whats that about? As we fade to black.. Next we have some track and field competions! Earlier I was saying how there was hardly any facilities for these, but nothing has improved! Sheesh, you think someone would read these reviews and make some improvemts.. Anyways, ¾ of the jumpers still cant make it over the bar, the track conditions are shit. Whoo! After a race we see a athlete almost collapse! WIMP! After more racing, discus and long jumping, we see a guy with a suit and tie doing a shot put, then Besse runs it backwards! Wee! After that, more street shots! Whoa! Tall girl alert! Shes easily 6 feet tall.. After some mugging of some local kids, (what was on his feet?) we go to City Hall! Right beside it is a Liquor store. LOL! Love it.. Back to the streets! Oh god.. ANOTHER PARADE! More bands The band looks weary (MAYBE BECAUSE THERES A PARADE EVERY WEEK?) Like the kids marching with the band! After some more kids mugging on a vehicle, we go back to the streets.. Whoa, an old codger does a classic I dont want to filmed! Gesture by waving his hands wildly.. Hmmm, people are doing more posing.. Is that teen kid giving a gang signal? Ha ha, lady does the walk right into the camera routine.. Like we havent seen that before (yawn).. Look! Easter bunny ears on the ladys head! Then we get an overview of the basketball teams! We have them holding basketballs AND throwing them! Theyre also doing basketball poses, Look theyre all holding the ball! Look theyre playing defense! Look! A one handed basketball grip! Actually, the whole sequence is somewhat homoerotic, not too sure why OK! Back to babies!! Aww! Next we see a badly damaged car Hm, what happened there? OK, back to the streets1 Old codger! Stop making faces!

Reviewer: cashel - - December 9, 2003
Subject: poignant
we see real people in a small usa town and can only feel sadness as we look at the happy faces.Seeing the young sportsmen, proud and confident, we know that many would die or be wounded in battle...The tragedy of w.war 2 SEE my review of PART 1 for more infrmation about the town and its people

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